


Grumpkins and Snarks

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2188911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>neverwheredreamer promped: Rumbelle in GOT</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grumpkins and Snarks

He’d thought they’d be safe when they made it into the darkness surrounding the run-down hall of her father, and for a time, they had been. She was large with child as they trudged through the wilderness and he cursed the lame leg that kept him from assisting her through the heavy snows. He didn’t know where to take her except back to the Wall. He would be killed for a deserter if they were found, and she for being a wildling, but the cold would kill them just as surely as the swords of the honorable men of Winterfell. It was nothing new to him, of course. He would find a way to secret her through the Castle Black and they would travel carefully along the King’s Road until they found a village where they could find work and buy a pair of horses. The horses would get them far, and his sword would help them to keep them.

He was always looking over his shoulder as they traveled south, always. He looked for the glint of metal in the moonlight, for either the brother that her father would have gifted her to as a toy or the hook that the mad pirate had thrust through the chest of their commander. He looked for the ghost of her father, a brutal vengeful spirit coming to take away their fleeting happiness. In the end he was right in one aspect, there was something coming to ruin them, though the ghost of her father was never what he should have worried about.

It came in the night. They had stumbled across a ramshackle little cabin that was half collapsed but it was better than huddling together beside a guttering fire. They sat together in the close little one-room hut and talked shyly of what they might name the babe when it was time for him to enter the world. She favored the names well known throughout the land, not understanding that a family name could not belong to a peasant child born beyond the Wall. He offered suggestions more fitting for their rank and she considered them solemnly, one hand stroking her belly over the rough spun fabric of her gown as he watched her. A raucous sound from the trees outside caused them both to jump and he hurried to his feet, assuring her that she would be safe. His heart thundered like a drum inside his chest as he stepped through the gaping front door and into the frigid night air with his sword held painfully tight in one sweaty fist. The noise continued unabated as his fur-lined boots crunched through the jagged crests of ice, whipped up by the wind. There was a tree full of crows, every branch bowing under the weight of hundreds and hundreds of them, splitting the air with their harsh cries.

He forced himself to continue forward, though he did not approach the tree and he did not walk more than fifteen paces from the cabin. It wasn’t until he turned to return to the warmth of the fire and of his lady that he saw it. A being cloaked in shadows to his left, stepping toward him from the far side of the house. It raised it’s eyes to him and he choked on the air in his lungs. They were bright blue, electric and glowing in the darkness. A white walker.

“Are those crows? They’re so loud.” Belle appeared in the doorway with one hand on the doorframe and the other cupping the place where her boy—their boy made her body swell. “What are they doing?”

“Belle go back—NO!” He stumbled forward when the eyes swiveled to the woman then dropped to her belly. It took a step toward her and he raised his sword in warning. “You will not touch her!”

The shout was loud, louder than he knew he could be, and fierce. He’d never been a brave man, quite the opposite. Only cowards and rapers ended up on the Wall. But he had a reason to be brave now that he never had before, and any threat to that, to her, to them was entirely unacceptable. The wight returned its soulless gaze to him and smiled a smile that bared a mouthful of pointed teeth. A sword appeared in his hand, but from where he could not have said, and it prowled toward him with inhuman grace. His walking stick was abandoned in favor of holding his sword steady in front of him as the creature approached, all pale white skin and ragged brown loincloth. As it neared, he widened his stance and allowed himself a moment’s glance at Belle. She had both hands pressed tight over her mouth, her pretty blue eyes wide and frantic beneath her tangled mass of curls and he tried to smile at her, even as the monster advanced.

It reached him with a hollow growl and he drew back his sword and swung it forward. Behind the white walker, Belle tried to run to him and fell, one hand stretched out in desperation and a sobbing cry that might have been on her lips. The creature threw it’s head back with a screech that rang in the marrow of his bones before it’s translucent flesh cracked and crumpled to dust around the place where his sword had pierced it’s heart. As the dust settled to the frozen ground at his feet, the sword drooped until the point was dug into the earth and he could put some of the weight making his injured leg scream onto it. His eyes met Belle’s across the space between them and the crows fell silent, and the wind began to swirl away the evidence of his bravery off into the night.


End file.
